Soaking rains this weekend left golf courses empty, helped fill movie theaters and lowered temperatures. They also set a record in New Bern.

Bel Melendez, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Newport, said the rain event started Friday by breaking a 65-year-old rainfall record in New Bern. On Aug. 1, 1949, New Bern received 1.07 inches of rain in 24 hours. On Friday, 1.97 inches of rain fell in New Bern, she said.

The rainy weekend started when a cold front collided with a warm front over Eastern North Carolina early Friday and created a frontal boundary, or a stationary front, Melendez said.

“We have a stationary front at the surface and an upper level energy trough above it that is causing the rainy weekend,” she said. “It’s brought a lot of rain over our area and it looks like it is going to be lingering through Monday.”

It also brought heavy flooding to Beaufort on Friday, Melendez said.

“Numerous roads were impassable downtown,” she said.

A waterspout about 1 mile southwest of Bogue Inlet also was reported Friday by a boater, Melendez said.

On Saturday, New Bern and the James City area received between .33 to .64 inches of rain. On Sunday, the National Weather Service extended a flood watch in Eastern North Carolina until Monday evening, she said.

During the three days of off-and-on rain, temperatures fell 10 to 11 degrees below normal for this time in August, Melendez said.

“So it is a little break for those of us who like cooler weather,” she said. “These are not typical August temperatures. That’s for sure.”

Stanley Kite, director of Craven County emergency management, said there have been several accidents in the county over the weekend that were probably related to weather, and a few cars had to be pulled from ditches.

The Neuse River and Swift Creek were also rising close to flood levels Sunday, he said.

“There’s been a lot of water,” Kite said.

Tabitha Baysden, an employee at the Neuse Boulevard Cinema in New Bern, said many people were going to the movies to get out of the rain this weekend.

“We were extremely busy Saturday,” she said. “We had about 180 (moviegoers) for the first show. It’s been fairly good all weekend for us. It’s not the best weekend we’ve had, but it has been a good weekend as far as the weather is concerned.”